Motivation in foreign language learning

• self-efficacy theory

• attribution theory

• theory of interest

• self-determination theory

• flow-theory

• Self-efficacy refers to people‘s judgement of their capabilities to carry out specific tasks

• Self-empowerment influences motivation (“I have what it takes to do sth vs. I don’t have what it takes to do sth”)

• For learners with low self-efficacy a language task is personally threatening (face-threatening)

• Self-efficacy is only indirectly related to actual competence and based on one’s own perception

• Attribution: causal explanation for something

• Guiding assumption: the way humans explain their own past successes and failures will significantly affect their future achievement behavior

• failure that is ascribed to stable and uncontrollable factors (e.g. low ability) decreases the expectation of future success

• Success that is ascribed to internal and stable factors will increase expectation of success in the future

• initiating and self-regulating one's actions is an innate human need

• varies along a continuum from self-determined to more controlled behaviour

• external regulation: action results from the need to achieve external rewards or avoid punishing

• identified regulation: participation in an activity in order to learn new skills (cf. intrinsic motivation)

Two components influence interest:

• Feeling-related valences (Does an object or an activity arouse feelings like involvement, stimulation?)

• Value-related valences (How important is an object or an activity to me?)

  
  

Individual interest (stable evaluative orientation) vs. situational interest (emotional state aroused by specific features of an activity)

Text features which arouse situational interest: personal relevance, novelty, comprehensibility

• flow: “a subjective state that people report when they are completely involved in something to the point of forgetting time, fatigue and everything else by the activity itself”

• total immersion in performing an activity (loss of control over actions and the environment)

• positive affect, focused attention

• The activity itself is more important than the product